this is some kind of a wild idea
we get to know history by reading books, watching documentaries or from the lectures we had at school or maybe even by visiting places like museums or so
and pretty much history was always told to us, we actually never experienced living in it and watching it unfold in front of us. and the way we’d get to know about history matters a lot.
there's no way to actually talk to people from the past. but maybe we can simulate it.
and so the virtual history.
**what it does:**
recreate historical figures and moments. but each character created will have have a different tone, expression, style of the way it was written in the history.
interactive characters you can actually talk to.
like if you want to understand what Mahatma Gandhi was thinking during the salt march of 1930? talk to him.
curious about what Steve Jobs was thinking about the future when he unveiled the first iPhone in 2007? talk to him.
curious about what everyday people felt during the french revolution? talk to them.
want to hear multiple perspectives on the same event? talk to people from different sides.
it's not like we’re gonna replace history books but instead we are going a level deeper and adding another layer on top to explore of how we understand history through conversations.
**how it feels:**
you pick a time period or an event. the app drops you into a visual space, maybe a recreated setting. historical figures are there, but also regular people from that era. you can ask them questions. they respond based on historical records, writings, documented perspectives.
it shows you where each perspective comes from. what sources were used. what biases might exist. it's transparent about the fact that this is simulation, not time travel.
**and to build this, these are what we'd probably need:**
hardware:
VR headset with good gpu
software:
character simulation (llm’s trained and fine tuned on the character’s specific historical texts, letters, diaries, speeches from specific time periods)
visual generation for historical settings and character representations.
conversation flow that feels natural but stays historically grounded.
ideally the experience should include
timeline browser, pick any era or event you want to explore.
character selection, choose who you want to talk to.
multiple perspective mode, see the same event from different angles.
source viewer, check what historical records each conversation is based on.
educational context, background information on what you're exploring.
save conversations, keep transcripts of interesting exchanges.
curated experiences, guided tours through complex historical moments.
if taken up, this would obviously have a ton of work, i mean just on the rough level,
we’d need to recreate most of the historical places to the near perfection. lots of environments.
collect information about particular characters and feed them to a model.
finding the pieces each character have written or spoke, finetune a model to speak like them.
putting them all together to reference a timeline and making the character speak.
i’m sure there’ll be lot lot more.
if orchestrated, this has to be designed really really well.
we need to be extremely careful about sources, transparent about perspectives, and if we don’t have information of something, we should take precautions of the model to not hallucinate.
cuz you can portray the same historical event in ten different ways. from ten different perspectives. the perspective you see shapes the way how you think about it.
like from who's telling the story, what aspects they emphasizing, and history is obviously not just facts, we get to learn a lot about it to get a better picture of our evolution and to anticipate how the future would look like.
and if done well, this could change how people connect with history. not just memorizing dates, but actually understanding the human reality of different times.
we’d not just talk rough facts, we’d did deeper casually in our conversations.
note: i might not have spoken with an accurate information what we need to build this, but that’s a rough idea that i have. if you’d like to correct it, please do reach out. or tell my agent on the right.